8 Dropped Ideas That Could've Helped WWE Ratings

4. The Anonymous Raw GM

Randy Orton The Revival
WWE.com

For over a year, Monday Night Raw was dominated by the presence of an anonymous General Manager who would use Michael Cole as their mouthpiece.

It was painful, it was annoying, it was nuclear heat, and it could have easily led to somebody being propelled to the level of one of WWE’s top heels if the eventual reveal had been handled correctly. Instead, WWE just decided to completely drop the whole anonymous GM angle in July 2011 when Triple H and Jon Laurinaitis were the handed the job of running Raw.

A year later, WWE decided to use Raw 1000 to reveal that the anonymous GM had actually been Hornswoggle all along. As in, the one and same Hornswoggle who was left as the disappointing reveal behind the mystery of Vince McMahon’s illegitimate son back in 2007.

Rather than using the initial year-long angle of the anonymous GM to give a shot in the arm to an emerging talent, or even to just have an already established heel take credit for the painstaking heat generated by the storyline, WWE dropped the ball and laughed it all off as their resident leprechaun being behind the whole thing.

*Sigh*

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.